Over the weekend of the 20th/21st May, members of the Quantum Technology Club and Wales Digital Radio Group (WDRG) got together on Shell Island, near Harlech, to run GB8SOS. The station was one of thirty-odd that will have been on the air throughout May taking part in SOS Radio Week.
SOS Radio Week
SOS Radio Week is a month-long event that takes part every May. The idea behind the event is to promote the invaluable work of the unpaid volunteers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), National Coastwatch Institution (NCI) and various independent lifeboat stations and coast the coasts of the British Isles. These volunteers give up their own time to help rescue those who are in danger around our coasts, and out to sea. In the case of the amazingly selfless brave crews of the lifeboats, they risk their own lives to save others.
GB8SOS
The GB8SOS station was setup by members of the WDRG set up the station, missive array of antennas, on the Thursday evening (18th) and operated throughout the Friday on various modes. Derek (G7LFC) and Rebecca (M6BUB) arrived on the Friday evening and immediately set to work; adding a second FT8 station that could work on a second band and running social media.
Rebecca did an amazing job creating and submitting several posts and reels to Facebook throughout the weekend. She did a brilliant job of capturing the activities that the station’s operators were getting up to. One reel, depicting youngsters from the camping site having a go at satellite tracking, has been viewed over 1,400 times – a great effort.
The station attracted a few local radio amateurs who came to see what we were doing.
Derek and Simon (MW0GSR), from the WDRG, having been running special event stations during SOS Radio Week for many years now. Their enthusiasm has now been caught by other members of the WDRG and running GB8SOS on Shell Island is now a firm favourite of the group and on the calendar for future years to come.
Shell Island – perfect for GB8SOS
Shell Island is a great venue for running GB8SOS. It’s one of the largest campsites in Wales and has loads of space for campers to spread out. It’s that large that Derek, currently walking five miles a day to raise money for the RNLI, was able to walk nearly three and half miles in one go without leaving the boundary of the campsite.
Its size means that the special event station can be established without affecting any of the other campers. The 360 degree views are stunning; Snowdonia, Llyn Peninsula, the sea. The on-site facilities are really good too, featuring a supermarket, gift shop, camping shop, cafe and pub. This made Shell Island so attractive to the GB8SOS team as there was no need to leave the site for anything. There is also a great beach to enable team members to get away from it for a while and take everything in the beautiful area has to offer.
One thing to note is that the island isn’t really an island. It is part of the coast, but the only road in/out crosses an area of land that floods at high tide. So it kind of feels like an island and was once, way back in the mists of times gone by. So that does restrict arrival and departure times at some times of the year – but it all adds to specialness of the place.
SOS Radio Week 200
Next year is the 200th anniversary of the RNLI and the SOS Radio Week team are planning some special activities throughout the year. The GB8SOS folk also have some ideas on how to make their event bigger and better too; this year was just a trial run, a very successful one.